Thursday, May 14, 2009

There are people in this world who have not had the pleasure of co-existing with mice.

A couple years ago, mice made an appearance at our office. It makes sense; if I was a mouse, I would find hanging out in a newspaper office where there is no shortage of food and lots of nest-building materials, ideal.

One co-worker asked another if what was on her desk were mouse droppings and when confirmed, most people were freaked out that they were sharing their work surfaces with a mouse.

Then one day, the quiet in the office was broken by a shriek and the sight of JL jumping from her desk and screaming that a mouse ran across her toes.

While JL’s side of the room was erupted by people fleeing from their desks, NN, who lives in an old house in the city and understands mice, and I, were in hysterics as three grown men, equipped with various mouse-catching paraphernalia, cornered the poor thing and took it outside.

Making a statementGrowing up, we had mice in our house but we also had cats, and the rodents were smart enough to stay in the walls. When our cats died, the mice started coming into the house and my mom put out poison.One time my mom was in the kitchen, when a mouse staggered out, looked up at her and died. That was the end of the theatrical mouse.

Welcome to the theatreOur cat, Sylvester, was born in a barn but became a spoiled house cat shortly after.Sylvester is not the world’s greatest mouser and the mice in our house know it - they are rather bold. One day my husband and I were having dinner and Sylvester joined us. I asked him what was in his mouth and he promptly spit it out. I looked over and noticed a mouse laying on its back, panting with its beating rapidly. As I pulled back to ask my husband to deal with it, the mouse jumped up and ran away, disappearing behind a shelving unit.I sat back down, looked at my husband and said “Oh, dinner and a show.”